a matter of personal experience in those to whom he writes. Hearing, thinking, judging, embracing truth, are surely personal acts,—acts of mind, which no man can do for us, and which cannot take place within us independent of our consciousness. And of these acts of mind St. Peter speaks when he reminds the converts that they had been "born again by the word of God, which word by the Gospel had been preached to them," and that they had "obeyed the truth,"— submitted their judgment and convictions to its influence. Feeling (again) is surely a personal act -an act of the heart, which, from its very nature, we cannot but be conscious of, which we possess only so far as we are conscious of it. And of such acts of heart St. Peter speaks when he declares that they "by Christ had believed in God,"-had reposed their trust and confidence in him as their Father,— and had "put their faith and hope in God:"-and had "tasted that the Lord is gracious,"-had found the truth of God's forgiving love as grateful to their spiritual sensibility as the purest milk is to the bodily palate of the new-born babe. Desire, (once more,) resolve, endeavour, are surely personal acts -acts of will; the very experiences which constitute us persons at all, in contra-distinction to things, moving from an impulse within ourselves, instead of being moved, like the wind-tossed leaf, or the floating weed, by impulses without us. And of these

acts of will St. Peter speaks when he exhorts them, "therefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies and envies, and all evil-speakings, desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby." So evident, indeed, is all this, and so impossible is it to conceive a human being going through all these changes of the character without reflection, and emotion, and determination,-by any other way than that of personal consciousness and interest and effort,-that the drawing out the proof of this might well seem superfluous, if not absurd, were it not that no words can ever be too many no efforts too assiduous, no reasoning too minute, when we are endeavouring to banish and drive away that fatal delusion, that worst form of Enthusiasm, (though it claims the merit of horror at Enthusiasm,) which dotes upon the fancy that men may be sanctified without knowing it, and saved without the trouble of it, and be literally carried, like a passive infant, by the angels into Abraham's bosom; that, dozing listlessly for all their life in one state, and that a state of irreligion, they may nevertheless wake at last with glad surprise in another state, and that the state of glory swept from destruction in a dream, and smuggled into heaven! May God deliver us from such Antinomian slumber, and startle us into new and Spiritual life!

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SECTION III.

THE MEANS OF SPIRITUAL REGENERATION.

SPIRITUAL Regeneration is the developement of love towards God. And the grand means of this developement is therefore that Exhibition of God's love towards us, which is vouchsafed in the Gospel of Christ. For it is love that begets love. Love cannot exist alone. It must be reciprocal. And, therefore, our affection towards God must vary as our consciousness of the affection of God towards us. And this affection of God towards us is just the one great truth which is proclaimed to us in Christ. It is by manifesting this that Christianity obtains a power over the hearts of men, which no philosophy, no persuasion, no religion even, in its lower truths, can gain. And it is by commending this to the individual mind that the Spirit of Christ -which is emphatically "the Spirit of the Truth," of this particular fundamental truth of God's saving love, becomes the Spirit of life, and new creates the soul. And this, therefore, is what St. Peter refers to, as the means and instrument of Regeneration, in the passage we have already considered,

when he reminds his converts that they had been born again," not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." And St. James, also, in a very

similar passage, (i. 18-27.) in which, having first laid down the general proposition that nothing but good can come from God, he adds, as the most convincing proof of his beneficence, " of his own will begat he us, with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures."

For, by referring to the context of the passage in St. Peter, we see at once what was in the mind of the Apostle when he used the phrase "the word of God." In the twenty-fifth verse he expressly explains his meaning: "This is the word," this is what I am specially referring to by that term"which by the Gospel is preached unto you." And when, in verse twenty-two, he says, "ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth," you will find. from the preceding verses that "the truth" which he has in view is that of Christ's "redemption of them by his precious blood"—of his "manifestation in these last times for them"-of his death, and resurrection, and glory, accomplished for them, "that their faith and hope might be in God." Which truth he again distinguishes in chapter ii. 3. by saying, 66 ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious;” — that is, have believed and felt that God is forgiving and

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affectionate towards you, so that coming unto him whom he has chosen and made precious, you are made "a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ;"-and "though in time past not a people, yet are now the people of God, though ye had not obtained mercy, yet now have obtained mercy."

And this specific use of the terms, "the word of God," "the word," "the truth of the Gospel," to express the fundamental doctrine of that Gospel, that "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them" is the prevailing one in Scripture. It speaks not, in those terms, of any particular words or writings, as we are too much accustomed to intend when we employ the phrase, as if the spiritual life might be evoked by the letter of Scripture or by some cabalistic charm, but of the truths which formed the substance of the Apostolic writings and addresses the message, of which they were the ambassadors, the disclosures concerning God, and his character, and his feelings towards us, and his doings for us, which were made by his beloved Son. It is not in words, but in "the word;" not in the terms, but in the ideas of Christianity; that its mighty power resides. When St. Paul reminds the Colossians

of " the hope laid up for them in

* Col. i. 5, 6.